DeLand, Fla. –Ankush Arora won his third singles contest in the last four matches on Wednesday morning as the USC Upstate men's tennis team dropped a 4-1 decision to the North Dakota Fighting Hawks at Stetson's Mandy Stoll Tennis Center.

USC Upstate falls to 1-8 on the season while North Dakota improves to 6-7 overall.

DOUBLES North Dakota captured two of the three doubles matches at No. 1 and No. 3 to take a 1-0 lead over the Spartans.

Lucas Percy and Frederick Sydow, playing at No. 2 doubles, secured a 6-1 victory against Johnnie Carmichael-Plester and Davide Callegari.

SINGLES The Fighting Hawks followed by winning the No. 2, No. 3 and No. 6 singles matches to record the 4-1 victory. Two of the six matches went unfinished with Sydow at No. 4 and Tom Russwurm at No. 5.

Arora registered his fourth victory of the season, all at the No. 1 position, after defeating Nejc Sitar in straight sets 6-2, 6-4.

Sydow was leading his No. 4 match against Jake Kuhlman 1-6, 6-2, 5-1 when North Dakota clinched match point. Russwurm was tied with Callegari 4-6, 6-3, 2-2 at No. 5.

COACH'S QUOTE"I'm just really pleased with the way our guys are competing right now. Almost everyone is dealing with an injury or an illness and some of them both, but we keep showing up and giving ourselves chances. If we could start singles matches with the intensity and fight that we play after going down in the team score we'll start pulling out these matches even though we're banged up right now. Today was a great example of that where we actually turned around the team match and then Percy comes up with a little bit of a freak injury when he's dominating the set. Freddie was serving at match point and Tom was up a break in the third when the match was clinched. So we're close. I'm just excited for this team once we get everyone back and healthy."– Tim McLane, head coach

UP NEXT USC Upstate continues its road trip on Saturday morning with a 10 a.m. match at Bethune-Cookman.